


Five Things That Happened to Mosca Mye

by misura



Category: Fly By Night Series - Frances Hardinge
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-29
Updated: 2017-07-29
Packaged: 2018-12-08 13:00:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,454
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11647074
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/misura/pseuds/misura
Summary: Maybe.





	Five Things That Happened to Mosca Mye

**Author's Note:**

  * For [mairelon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mairelon/gifts).



.01

Most of Clent's schemes required only a single person to succeed - they were simple, easy stories, intended to expose and exploit people's dreams and desires.

The nobleman who had fallen on hard times and was in such need of monetary means that he was willing to offer an outrageous rate of interest. The scholar of bookish learning who was mere pennies removed from making a discovery guaranteed to bring untold but strongly hinted at riches to all who would be allowed to share in the secret. The artist who had recognized a master's hand in a painting being sold for a mere pittance that, alas, still exceeded the capacity of his meager purse.

Few of these stories offered a role requiring a thirteen-year old girl to fill it. The nobleman might have a single servant girl left to him; the scholar, a niece; the artist, an apprentice, but all of these required the story to be slightly longer, to offer elaborate explanations and allowed for complicated contrivances to answer the most simple questions people might ask regarding Mosca.

"Simplicity in these matters is, alas, essential," sighed Clent.

Mosca chewed on her pipe. "Guess I'll make up my own story, then." 

Clent looked vaguely alarmed for a fraction of a moment, then smiled. "Ah. A division of labor. Indeed, what could be more natural? You will win their trust and good faith, while I do likewise, and if one of us becomes in need of a hasty departure, why, then the other will surely be in a position to learn of it sufficiently early to avoid any unpleasantness."

Mosca considered. Clent's plan fell a few marks short of where she had been headed herself, but for now, she supposed, it might do well enough.

 

.02

While their memories might have been as damp as their socks, it was evident the people of Chough still remembered Eponymous Clent, who had, for a brief while at least, set fire to all of their imaginations the way Mosca had set fire to the mill belonging to her aunt and uncle.

Mosca herself was far less well-remembered, reduced to a mere footnote in the story of how a Notorious Criminal with Pernicious Intentions had once arrived, intending Murder and Mayhem only to be foiled by Common Sense and Unassailable Virtue. (She had turned into a nameless orphan, believed to have run away and drowned, an object moral lesson as to what happened to Disobedient and Unruly Children Who Did Not Heed Their Elders.)

Clent's escape was not allowed to mar this tale in the slightest; rather, it was furnished as further proof of the utter and compleye victory of the good people of Chough over this Dangerous Hoodlum who had come intending to Hoodwink and had been Run Off instead, chased back into the world from whence he had come to find Easier Prey.

Even so, having heard the story proudly recited three times in succession, Mosca decided not to linger than had been absolutely necessary to convince herself of the truth that nothing remained here that was of the least interest or value to her.

 

.03

Many years ago, Mosca might have believed that it was Torquest the Joiner of Hands that was making the palm of her hand throb whenever she chanced to look or think about it.

Clent's expression was grave. "Madam. I trust it needs no saying aloud that the course you have plotted for us is fraught with peril and that we are neither of us likely to live beyond, say, the end of next week."

_Throb,_ went the brand.

"Nobody put a brand on _your_ hand, Mr. Clent," said Mosca. " _You_ could still run."

Clent looked vaguely pained for a moment. "Indeed. The thought had occurred."

_But you won't run, will, you, Mr. Clent? Not anymore. And you might think it's 'cause of me, and you might even be right, but I think that maybe there's a part of you that knows that's not the whole of the reason. The truth is, you've gone and gotten yourself caught in your own story._

_And what a story it is. Full of spies and double agents and radicals and royalists. There might even be a goose mixed up in there. In fact, I'm almost positive there is, and_ he's _sure going to live longer than the end of next week, at least if I've got anything to say about it._

Part of Mosca knew that she would not. She was only Mosca Mye. A nobody. A Locksmith agent. A Stationer spy. A common house fly.

Clent cleared his throat. "In these matters, I find it helpful to lay out the unadorned facts."

Mosca nodded. Putting something into words made it more real. Words made it easy to keep things in your head. But words also made up stories, and so once you had described something in words, you could start to switch some of them in and out, to turn a story you did not like the ending of into a story where things turned out not quite so bad. The only trick was finding the right ones.

 

.04

"Rejected!" Clent shook with indignation. "A tale as instructive as entertaining!"

_Sure, but instructive for who, Mr. Clent? For people like us?_ Few people considered themselves the sort to get taken in by tricksters and con men. Ironically, that made it easier for Clent to trick them.

Because while people often thought they were smarter than they really were, that did not mean that they did not believe that they might not really meet a down on his luck duke or an artist about to get rich. The stories had to come from somewhere, didn't they? Some of them had to be true.

"I'm not sure that I'd have liked to become famous, anyway, Mr. Clent," she said. "Even if it was under a different name. And even if you didn't make her look much like me."

"Yes, well." Clent seemed to have recovered slightly from the ordeal of having been politely informed his manuscript would not be printed and that, as such, no monetary relief would be forthcoming. "There is a certain expectation in these matters. Truthfulness must make way for a certain sensitivity to the appetite of the common man, looking to spend hard-earned money on a moment's entertainment."

"That, and I guess it wouldn't do for people to start recognizing us in places we haven't even been."

"A minor concern, I assure you," Clent said. "A poet cannot concern himself with pusillaminous practicality."

 

.05

Clent's face, as he entered the room, offered little hope. He wore an expression stating plainly that all was well, and that concerns with their continued state of well-being and un-burnt-ness were, at best, the results of an over-heated imagination.

"They're going to burn them, aren't they, Mr. Clent?" _And likely as not us as well, provided we're not quick enough to get away._

Clent's shoulders sagged. Mosca felt strangely touched by this display of sympathy. After all, it was not as if the books people were talking about burning had the least to do with Clent. The words in them had not come from his mind, flowing out of his pen onto the paper as easily and smoothly as if she'd been pouring out a cup of water.

In the beginning, Mosca had thought that they were her father's words. Some of them had been, she thought. Half-remembered phrases and stray thoughts that had been buzzing around in her head, now properly caught and put to paper, where they had always belonged. Where they had made their home once, before the Stationers had gone and turned them to ashes.

Now, it seemed history was about to repeat itself, like a nearly-doused fire flickering up again with the changing of the wind.

"Yes," said Clent. "I fear so. I have attempted to dissuade the mayor, mentioning that in order to root out radicals one must, at times, assume a certain similar shade of mind, but he proved less than amenable to my arguments. In fact, he even expressed some doubt as to our credentials."

"We've always been going around telling people stories, Mr. Clent. What's so wrong, I'd like to hear, about going around telling people stories that are true? That might make people do their own thinking for once, instead of letting others do it for them?"

Clent sighed.

Mosca put down her pen, noting her ink-stained fingers. The sight cheered her. "We'll be going back to Mandelion, then?"

"It does seem our best option currently," admitted Clent.

"They might have a use for the two of us there, what with everything that's been happening."

Clent shuddered.


End file.
